First in the Fury Unbound paranormal fantasy series revolving around Kaeleen Donovan, a minor goddess working for Hecate in Seattle.

My Take

The series arc is of the good guys against the bad, the usual. Only this time it’s gods, Gaia, and all their agents against an order of black magicians intent on bringing chaos back into the world, which would unmake what currently exists.

Hmmm, there are a few parts, big ones, that I wouldn’t object to unmaking. That corporatocracy can collapse along with their minions, for one. Of course, this story’s arc introduces us to this world and what’s at stake, as well as some doom-and-gloom regarding what’s happened in the past. Just to make us worry more. It also provides the first step in the series arc, as Fury saves the day…and the world with a cozy group of core characters who are her friends and the easy relationship she has with the goddess who holds her leash.

A few slip-ups, but on the whole, Galenorn had a nice touch on the info dumps, and the action in Fury Rising introduces us to all the groups involved in keeping their world functioning, heck, existing!

There are inconsistencies. On one hand, Galenorn says the World Shift took place centuries ago, and that it took forever for the world to rebuild itself to a technology acceptable to Gaia. Then she notes that many of the older buildings in Darktown had already been through the World Shift. Impressive?? I’ll say. Their construction work must’ve been really, really, really good!! With a vastly different past history than our world.

Galenorn uses first person protagonist point-of-view, which can be rather annoying with Fury. She’s supposed to be a minor goddess, which to my mind means she’s got some power. You wouldn’t know it by her actions and that brain of hers has a lot of maturing to do.

The Story

It was the Weather Wars centuries ago that woke Gaia, and earth is still on probation with atill-missing artifacts that can affect the weather taboo. So when Thunderstrike turns up missing, the gods and Gaia’s agents are in a tizzy, with Hecate’s favorite Theosian dispatched to find it.

The Characters

Kaeleen Donovan is a Theosian, a minor goddess called Fury and oath-bound to Hecate to hunt down Abominations. She runs the Crossroads Cleaning Company and does readings and hexes at Dream Wardens. Her weapons include the razor-sharp Xan, a matched dagger, and the whip tattooed on her thigh. Queet is Kaeleen’s spirit guide, a schoolteacher eaten by an Abom, conscripted by the Fates, and assigned to Kae. Her mother, Marlene, had worked for ViCad Corp, as had her father, Terry, who died of blue-lung disease.

Jason Aerie, a two hundred-and-twenty-four-year-old hawk-shifter and magus who owns Dream Wardens, was a friend of Kae’s mother (and Kae has been in love with him for years). He’s engaged to Eileen Wallace, a Corp-Rat and a hawk-shifter. Terabet Wallace had been her mother. Hans is the brawn of Dream Wardens, a Theosian who loves motorcycles and is bound to Thor. His girlfriend is training to be a Valkyrie. Tam O’Reilly is a techno-witch and a Bonny Fae, who also works for Dream Wardens.

Hawk-shifters originally…
…came from the wooded Black Forest, not today’s city. Terrance, a.k.a., Bodie, had been Jason’s mentor, the shaman who had to disappear, and now works for the Crystal Guardians. Cast is the term for a group of hawks. Mahit is their current shaman.

The Fae are…
…also called the Bonny Fae or Otherkin, and live in the Wild Wood, Briarwood. The UnderBarrow is a fae kingdom of Tuatha de Dannan ruled over by the Lord of the Barrow. Breena is one of the serving girls in the UnderBarrow.

Seattle is…

…ruled by a Regent and includes…

The Peninsula of the Gods (PotG) where…
…the gods, the emissaries of the gods, and their temples are based. The Temple Valhalla; Naós ton Theó, a temple of Grecian gods; and, the Coliseum, which is for Roman gods, are some of the divinities. The Convocation of Gods set up treaties and codes of conduct among the gods.

Hecate is the goddess of dark magic and Crossroads, where worlds merged and met and possibilities multiplied, and the Mother of Phantoms. Coralie is Hecate’s secretary. Theosians are agents of divine justice and include Dane, a Theosian yoked to Tisiphone.

Other Elder Gods include Papa Legba. The Fates work with Hecate frequently. The Pythia is the Oracle. Themis. Zeus is the god of the realm. His wife, Hera, is still the jealous type. Who can blame her?

The World Regency Corporation builds…
…weapons and armor for the Devani. They’ve also hidden away an ancient artifact,Thunderstrike, from the time of the Weather Wars. Nat Crayburg (known as Lord Whinypants in the Junk Yard) works for his daddy, one of the vice-presidents in research and development.

The Seattle Magician’s Guild is…
…a membership required of every magus and witch.

Neighborhoods include…
…the Market Square, which is the center of Darktown, an area still filled with the rubble from Gaia’s wrath. The Sandspit was created when one of Gaia’s lightning strikes vaporized the train yards. Now it’s home to a portal that spits out dangerous magic. The Bogs is just as wild; people who go in, rarely come out. The Metalworks is an industrial district. The Junk Yard started as a holding pen for Jagulins, big-cat-shifters fleeing Carpaxia in South America. Now it’s a haven for the UnderCult of thieves and criminals. And where Carver, a magus who works with automatons, brutalized Kae’s mother. Phoenix Rising is a magicians’ bar in the Junk Yard. Tulf is the barkeep. The Tremble is home base for NW Quarters gangs who hate Theosians. The Trips is another neighborhood.

The American government is…
…composed of five corporations, the Conglomerate, a corporatocracy that will take and use anyone. The Corp-Rats are their policing arm, and they’ve hired the Devani, ruthless, ultra self-righteous agents of light, who came from Elysium. Now they pursue justice, working for the Corp-Rats and the government-ruled-by-money’s idea of justice. They also use sky-eyes, drones that spy on citizens and can attack them. The government hates Theosians and chips them all, restricting where they could live.

Internationally, the EuroAsiAmerican Alliance keeps any country not a member at the agrarian level. Bifrost, Scandnavaland, is one of the remaining cities.

Meteocramancy is forbidden and punishable by death, but I have no idea what it is.

Gaia is…

…the great mother and spirit of earth who woke, furious, and initiated the World Shift centuries ago, which opened doors on the World Tree.

Greenlings are…
…based on Arbortariam and are Gaia’s henchmen, living extensions of earth, older than the Fae, and repositories of natural history. Zhan, a hedgemite, will take Fury to Jerako, an Elder among the Greenlings. The Crystal Guardians are a secret organization run by the Greenlings.

Lightning Strikes is…
…a worldwide organization directly under Gaia’s authority and prevents the use of weather magic (which is illegal). They are above any government and are policed by the Greenlings. Tigra is a weretiger agent.

The Enemy

The Order of the Black Mist is…
…a group of chaos magicians who want magic restrictions lifted. Lyon Burkenwald, originally from the Black Forest, works with black magic (fire is a specialty), and rules the Tunnels. He believes in human supremacy, that the gods have outlived their purpose, and that Chaos is the only answer. He intends to open the door to Chaos and let loose the Chaos gods. Weaver.

Pandorian is…
…one of the doors that opened and is a plane that feeds off the energy from Chaos, another plane off the World Tree, and is where the Abominations live. Soul stealers, they sometimes go in-body and devour their victims to the bone. The soul-hole is at the back of their necks when they’re in-body.

Miscellaneous Info

Werewolves birth lycanthropes while humans birth Theosians. Tommy-Tee is musical and an Opish addict. Lamar is a trendy fashion designer. Alisa, Cindy, and a friend are college students at University Hall, looking for spells. Marie is worried about her sister, Delia, who was murdered by Donal Tripoli, an Uptowner. Jessica had been Eileen’s neighbor. Astrigators are energy suckers and can transmit the energy to the person who summoned them. Ker demons.

The Cover and Title

The cover is a range of purples from the blue-violet background of skyscrapers lit in the night in the background to the full moon peeping through clouds. The author’s name is in white with an info blurb between first and last, and Jason in his hawk form, flying to the right, his wings caught up in the “r n”. The red-and-black-haired Fury crouches in profile, her head tilted down to look at us, wearing her black leather jacket and shorts, the better to access that whip tattooed to her thigh. She’s holding her gleaming sword at a downward angle, the light from it blending with the blue violet to make a red-violet gradation rising up the title, which is at Fury’s feet. The series information is at the very bottom in white with the publisher’s logo on the left.

I suspect the title is more about introducing us to Fury Rising rather than events in the story.

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